right away to say Taika Waititi directed an adaptation of a book by Barry Crump, the grandfather of xixax poster N. beyond that people told me i should've seen What We Do in the Shadows and missed out on that, Eagle vs Shark was his career start but i missed out on that, and Boy is the movie of his i've seen. Boy is a New Zealand version of Napoleon Dynamite or Submarine, its cinematic personality mirrors its character, which is a terrific path toward moviemaking, and such a person making a comic book movie is a good idea, based on what James Gunn demonstrated.

i haven't seen this trailer and i won't see this movie because Justice League is my comic book movie this year. but i like what it's up to

I've never really been into superheroes. (As of two weeks ago, I had only seen 1 movie from the MCU.) But wow did this work for me. I feel very comfortable saying Ragnarok is a masterpiece. This is what it looks like when a true artist is given infinite resources.

The movie is pervasively silly to the point that it purposefully clashes tones as an experiment. Which somehow works! But the real revelation for me is Waititi's visual imagination. Edgar Wright and George Miller would be proud. The level of craft here is pretty much beyond words. And there is a joy of filmmaking running through everything.

Taika Waititi needs to direct a Star Wars movie. Immediately. Give him all the money.

I've never really been into superheroes. (As of two weeks ago, I had only seen 1 movie from the MCU.) But wow did this work for me. I feel very comfortable saying Ragnarok is a masterpiece. This is what it looks like when a true artist is given infinite resources.

The movie is pervasively silly to the point that it purposefully clashes tones as an experiment. Which somehow works! But the real revelation for me is Waititi's visual imagination. Edgar Wright and George Miller would be proud. The level of craft here is pretty much beyond words. And there is a joy of filmmaking running through everything.

Taika Waititi needs to direct a Star Wars movie. Immediately. Give him all the money.

Wow, that's CRAZY because I feel almost the opposite. I've seen all the MCU movies. And I felt like this is really where the limitations of the Marvel house style start to show. To me this felt like they wrote a typical Thor script and just gave it to Taika to direct and asked "Could you make this funny?" And he was like "Yep". And it is funny, but not as funny as it thinks it is. The action/hero stuff feels totally perfunctory and like he really wanted to Yadda yadda it to get to the comedy. Best case scenario: this could've been The Princess Bride, a self-aware comedy but with real stakes and where you care about the characters. This should've either cut all traces of serious stuff and gone full gonzo or invested a little more in you caring about what happens.

And visually, woof. I just can't get over how cheap the Marvel movies look. Hulk looks great but there is so much obvious greenscreen, I was almost never not taken out of the film. The lighting was so flat and digital and compositing so poor, I just start scanning the scenes and wondering how they can get away with this.

I don't think this is bad, it's like a C+, but it's nowhere near the first Guardians which it seems like it was striving to be.

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Well this is interesting. I don't begrudge anyone disliking this movie if they didn't get what they wanted out of it. What do you look for in a Thor movie?

I recently saw the first two. The original was sort of okay, although Natalie Portman was disastrously miscast. The Dark World is probably the worst comic book movie I've seen — boring, lifeless, and just disappeared like a puff of steam. Hiddleston and Hemsworth did well (especially Hiddleston, holy crap), but I will never see those movies again. Ragnarok trimmed the fat, and every single element is so much better. Like everything just bloomed and came to life. Even Anthony Hopkins — it's like they woke him up for this role.

Maybe Ragnarok is a comic book movie for people who don't like comic book movies. That's very possible. You call the action perfunctory, but I would call it mercifully concise... while also being dense and artful. It just worked so well for me.

As for the comedy, how much do you think Taika worked on this script? Because he's not credited at all, and the comedy is in every single scene, to the extent that it plays like a parody half the time. Sure, by the end you could see the jokes coming, but I loved pretty much all of that. All the silliness and weirdness seems very much true to character for Thor, especially going back to the Norse myths, which are not only ridiculous but definitely have a strong sense of humor.

Picking the best Marvel movie is like congratulating the tallest dwarf.

I find them all lifeless, 'cheap' looking, template movies with godawful scores. I feel they're tiresome now, and I wasn't keen before. I've never revisited any of them and I guess for me they work as mindless entertainment or fast food, enjoyable enough at the time but not much sustenance.

I'm glad others are finding something to like in them. As you say it depends what you're looking for, and to each his/her own.

All that being said I'm glad Taika managed to leave his stamp on Thor Ragnarok and not disappear completely like most directors working with Marvel material.

For me they do better with TV. But even then for every Daredevil or Jessica Jones there's an Iron Fist or Luke Cage...

I haven't seen Ragnarok yet, but Marvel movies mocking how insipid they are is becoming a trend that I find absolutely difficult to bear...Because they've been doing it for a few years now and they don't seem to be able to operate to another level. They are able to do mindless basic fun or a movie making fun of the movies they are making. And I am sure that Ragnarok ends up in a big battle with one hundred random ships and six thousand random ennemies.

Guardians II was awful.

But I watched Homecoming recently and I was surprised to watch a fun and nice teen movie which doesn't end with a random battle. The bar isn't high, but these movies are fast food.

Anyway, if Ragnarok is fun, I'll enjoy it. But I share Shuges's exasperation. And the concern modage expresses about how ugly and lifeless these movies can be. Once again: Guardians II was a mess. (Even if they tried to be psychedelic, but this isn't what's I find ugly. There is a whole planet in Guardians II where they spend most of their time, but you just watch the actors in front a green screen...and what you see is...poor...But then James Gunn writes on Facebook about how many hours they needed to make some shots...And I don't know...It doesn't pay off on the screen...It's all lifeless. I'm hard against The Force Awakens, but the world of that movie didn't feel lifeless. But we are not at Star Wars Story #673.)

My favorite Marvel is probably Iron Man 3. I love this one. There is a personal arc for Tony. There is fun. Twists. And engaging action sequences!

So. It made me laugh three times. The rest is the same old same old. I just zone out during the scenes with spaceships and during the fights with mindless zombies. You can feel how the Marvel machine is sidetracking what Waititi is interested in—the whole part in the planet with the weird dictator is good and truly strange and funny and it looks interesting. But no. You have the extras from Asgard who don't look like real people.

(Also: tell me that I am not insane, but that shot of them in front of the water is absolutely ugly? It's shameless. Sometimes it looked like Cate Blanchett was digitally added to the background. They just don't care. But then: it had its own visual style when they were on the planet. It's a shame that it was only 40% of the movie, I wished it had been the whole movie...)

If you are watching these movies since the beginning, you can see 80% of the jokes coming before they are said. It's kind of annoying. But not as bad as in Guardian II.

I can't be satisfied to see directors with vision being buried inside old hamburgers. Let them make a new one. An entirely new one.

Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi might have his next job lined up. Speaking to Newshub, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy informally offered Waititi a job helming a film in the Star Wars franchise.

“I would love for him to direct a Star Wars movie,” she said. “I think he has exactly the right sensibility. It was very exciting to see him step into the Marvel universe and do such an amazing job with Thor.”

Waititi has addressed the idea of helming a Star Wars film in the past, remarking that the franchise has little room for a filmmaker like him. He also cited the “determinedly self-serious” tone of the franchise and a lack of improvisation as further reasons why he wouldn’t be a good fit. Waititi even went so far as to say he’d be “fired within a week.” However, he later told Uproxx that he is “not an idiot. Who would actually say no to Star Wars?”

I've seen Taika's Ted talk on the Art of Creativity video a few years ago. I've never thought he will handle and take Thor movie into a new light. Although aesthetically, the Thor Ragnarok movie is on par with Guardians of the Galaxy, the visual felt refreshing because I considered the first two Thor movies gritty on a DC universe level.